Day 1 (and 2)

Day 1 should have happened yesterday but due to the rain over the weekend and on Monday morning it was delayed until today.  The builder dropped his team early this morning and explained that they would be marking out and digging the trenches for the foundation of the undercover living area today (braai room if you prefer).  I have to tell you that I have never been so excited to see my backyard in such a mess.  It took 4 guys about 3,5 hours to strip our existing patio and dig the trenches.  Tomorrow the local building inspector will come and check that they have been correctly marked and that they have been dug to the correct depth before any further work is done.

This is the view from our back yard at the moment looking into our property.  We are going to be removing all those doors and windows and replacing them with other doors and windows.  Silly?  Well , the idea is that once we finish the second phase of the renovation all the rooms surrounding this undercover area will open into it.  We also want to open it up as much as we can and keep as much light coming into the property as possible.  The 2,4m sliding door in the living room will be replaced with a 3m one. We are still trying to decide on the configuration of this sliding door.  I would love stacking doors but I got a quote this morning and they are at least 4 times the cost of a sliding door.  A girl can dream!  It is my philosophy that you should always try and get exactly what you want first and then start compromising.  I will let you know how that works out for me by the time we are finished with this.  The small window in the corner is being replaced by a small sliding door.  This room will eventually become a family room.  It is currently our study.  The other window is being closed in and a much smaller window is going in.  This will be a little weird for us as that is currently our bedroom window.  Part of this bedroom will become a very small study so we decided to make these changes now to prevent any work having to be done later in this renovated space. Right now, I need to do a little more homework with regards to the built in braai (barbecue).  More compromising ...  My first choice was a Jetmaster 1200 but once again, it is not in our budget.  At the moment it looks like we will be opting for a Megamaster 1200 Deluxe.